On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 19:38:09 +0000, Pete Choppin <pchoppin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I was just looking for a consensus on this... I have been working with Fedora Core 3 for the past month. My new years
resolution was to learn Linux. So far, so good. I created a dual-boot Fedora / Windows XP. I am now seriously considering
going completely 100% Linux and dumping my Windows partition entirely. The question is - can you live completely without Windows, or do you sooner
or later have to resort to Windows again?
Questions for you should be something like this:
Are you a heavy PC gamer? If so, keeping windows around is a necessary evil even with the progress in wine. No, btw, console games are NOT the same and not always better.
Then again, I am not a heavy gamer.
Do you do a lot of Visio or work with MS Project? If so, there are no completely compatible solutions. Then again, I don't have a use for either of those programs.
I do not I admit do a lot of amateur video editing and have no idea how linux is for that.
No, if you are not put off by any of the above, then congrats you may be ready for the jump.
I use Abiword and gnumeric to open Word and Excel docs and gaim to IM and I followed the FAQs and have even Quicktime videos working in linux.
I still have a dual boot system because my wife insists we keep it but neither one of us has booted into the Windows side in forever.
My only other bit of advice is to make sure you have plenty of ram. Processor speed has never been a factor for me but Fedora seems to
like a box with 256MB or above and my laptop with 128MB feels a bit
slow but honestly a lot snappier than it did in RH9.
The downside is that you better do your homework for buying hardware from here on out. I have a Netgear wireless card I have to compile the driver for every time I get a kernel update but my Brother HL 1440 printer and Nikon digital camera work with linux really well.
The dag repositories have the gtkpod software if you have an iPod btw.
The upside is that its free like speech man. There is a certain freedom to be out from under the commercial software shackles of always having to shell out cash for good programs and running in an open source world. Plus, it is nice to be away from l33tster warez culture that too many hardcore Windows folks roam around in and away from the routine of virus scanning and spyware scanning my box every night. Yuck. It is liberating at least for me. YMMV.
I have done video editing in Linux for the last year and half. There are some nice free/commercial products that give Linux professional tools for doing videos. Even been used on commercial movies such as Scooby Doo.
Newer versions of Windows requires a larger amount of memory as well. I doubt that the requirements for RAM is actually much different between FC3 and Windows XP for decent operation.
-- Robin Laing
